Ask Lemmy

Once every couple weeks or so.

once a month or three.

I know I have friends, but they're all technically my wife's friends and their husbands. We probably socialize once or twice a month, depending on schedules. I love them all, but I have no friends that I socialize with 1:1. It's always a group event. So in a way it feels like I have no friends.

The one friend that is truly and originally my friend, since middle school, I'll see maybe once a month if I'm lucky and it's usually a framily event with our wives and kids. And the time and distance apart feels wider than ever as we've gotten older.

Socializing at 40 is... different, and oddly lonely.

I have an active social life but mostly around shared interests, eg book clubs, sports, some activism, etc. Classic friendships not so much, having drifted from childhood friends. Feels like we live in different worlds. My partner has taken that place.

The big fall off is around 28-30 when most people are committing to families. After that you’re lucky to see them once and awhile.

40's. Once every 2 to 4 weeks, sometimes less. As an extrovert, this is killing (figuratively) me.

Becausebof various political shit happening around the world, my main friendship is gone

36, less than once per month

All my friendships basically dried up and fizzled away by 25. Old friends from school got married, went down different paths than I did, etc.

I'm 38 now and I still occasionally talk to a couple of friends every few months or so (one from middle school and one from high school), but it never goes beyond casual conversation. I haven't gone out with anyone besides the girlfriend in over a decade.

Are people over 40 allowed to reply? Or is that too large of an age gap?

Quite regularly, but only because I coincidentally moved into a house across the road from an acquaintance that became a good friend. We go over each other's house for tea, or board games, or casual multiplayer video games.

If it weren't for that proximity I'd say I'd very rarely spend time with friends. Life is busy. Work wants 40 or more hours a week, then you've got chores, shopping, study (if you're doing that, I was studying full time for a year and a bit recently), then you just need time for personal hobbies and relaxation. On top of that, other people can be flaky, or just busy with their own things.

Scheduled friend time. I have a lesbian friend who has never seen Madoka Magica so we do weekly watch parties. My childhood bestie hosts a weekly Twin Peaks watch party and we theorize together. I have a couple friends who my wife and I do D&D with. I also have an autist friend who I churn butter with since that shit is boring af alone.

I have no friends

I play DnD with some of my close friends. We also try to get together at one of our houses every once in a while to do "arts and crafts" stuff. Paint figurines, carve pumpkins, gingerbread houses, painting shitty paintings with bob ross. Sometimes we have "scary movie night", or watch over the garden wall, or a new anime that came out something. Sometimes we'll go out to do things too, the Zoo, or museums, or a haunted house, or coen maze this time of year. We started doing this after COVID. It seems kinda silly, but having a good excuse to get, like, a half a dozen or so friends together and hang out IRL is honestly great. Sometimes i don't wanna get up on a Saturday to do it, but I'm always glad I did. It's hard to come up with excuses to do things in person that aren't prohibitively expensive, nor infrequent.

You guys have friends?

You mean when I'm not depressed, isolated and withdrawn?

I don't remember...

Virtually at least once a week.

In person, about once a month.

30 here and all of my friends are people I met online. We chat every day, but only see each other for a weekend every few years at a convention. My friends are all younger than me with some finishing up college and others just having full time jobs. None have a wife and/or kids though (hell I'm the only one in the group with actual relationship experience with only 1 other having experience in just random 1 night hookups).

You mean at work?

Oh wait, am I supposed to actually see my non-work friends? I thought we just needed to text each other

I don't have any friends.

What friends?

Depends on the group.

I go climbing with same group at least once a week.

Then I have my big circle of vegan friends, where we try to see each other at least once a month but that can happen more often sometimes.

Then there's my classic circle of friends I've been friends with forever and the same for that, usually once a month.

So even if you disregard my weekly climbing I usually see at least one group of friends every other week but sometimes every week.

Edit: 31 by the way

probably once every two or three weeks on average?

40s, most days each week. My wife and I schedule couch rotting days to recharge.

Edit: I hadn't read through many other responses before I commented. Not trying to flaunt or anything. I just wanted to let younger folks know that social life isn't necessarily doomed as you get older. We don't have kids (which makes it easier,) but many of our friends do. They just have to be deliberate about setting aside time for themselves which can be tough to do.

• 25-30 living with a flatmate, seeing friends and being sociable & fun all the time, probably 6 days a week on average.

• In my 30s, living alone, having a longer commute and more responsible job, still made the effort to see different friends, with something bigger (dinner or game night) once a week. So seeing folks 3 / 7 days.

• 40s moved with partner to a different country. So now it's seeing friends 4 times a year when I go home, and another 2 or 3 times when they come visit. Definitely less than I'm happy with, and sometimes it's a source of frustration, but it's mostly OK. It's nice having the different experience of having a friend stay for a week, feels a little like being a teen when friends would sleep over.

I need to improve my language skills so I can spend time with my partners friends here. But because of demands of life, work, renovations, etc I think that even if my friends lived around, it would be closer to once/twice a week. Also, it's worth noting that as well as having lots of good friends who enjoy spending time with each other, I'm lucky to have lots of friends without kids or busy careers. One of my closest friends has both those things, and we really struggle to even fit a videocall in. But my autistic crafter buddy is good for a chat and a cup of tea anytime.

I'm 48. I have a few buddies that I rarely see in my hometown. I travel once or twice a year on a city break to drink and eat with a few old pals.

But yeah, generally I don't hang with anyone outside my own wife and kids and extended fam. This isn't through choice, it just seems to be the way things have gone.

Im broke, once a month or every two months, can't relate to my back home friends after moving back, my college friends are very spread out, we still meet up for raves, they meet more often, I can't make it as much

i think everyone on this thread should say their approximate location, then DM anyone on your area to see if you're closer enough to be IRL friends.

I'm in South West Michigan area.

I'm 56. I hang out with 5 to 6 friends 10 times a month on average. Mostly to play tabletop games. Sometimes I meet one or two for lunch.

Feels like less than once a month. I don't have a routine of hanging out with friends. I'm not even sure who considers me their friend. Everyone lives far away and I blame car culture for that.

Online pretty much all the time, in real life twice a week, at choir and at band practice. More when there are concerts.

These days I play disc golf with a customer-turned-friend every two or three weeks - which is way more often than before I met him. Back then, it was more like once or twice a year.

I guess I’m somewhat lucky that my job naturally puts me in contact with new people all the time. Even though I don’t hang out with friends that often, I still go into strangers’ homes almost daily to fix things, and I usually end up chatting with them. The elderly customers especially tend to offer me coffee - sometimes even food - which feels pretty wholesome. Almost like visiting grandparents.

I’m 36 and don’t really consider myself to have friends. Working from home for years and just lot really “clicking” with people in my city keep me isolated but it’s alright. The few social functions I find myself obligated to attend kind of suck so I don’t feel I miss out on much.

If you count discord, just about every night. We have a whole list of things we rotate between from movies, games, and brain rot videos.

In person, once every few months. We get together for some holidays, events, etc.

I used to spend at least one day a week with my friends, and when I was in a motorcycle club it was often far more.

Now I run my own business and have no free time really and when I do its recharge time and time spent with my wife.

I see my mates maybe once or twice a month now

28, I hang out with one friend at least 1-3 times a week. I see the rest of them once every few months, but we’re all in discord pretty frequently. I also have friends in the local kink scene I see relatively often depending on how many events I go to.